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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
I publish this not to damn Joe Biden, nor to engage in whataboutism, nor to divert attention from the actions of President Trump and his operatives. I bring this to you as a guide for all of us.
Ukraine Enterprises - American Roofs
Regardless of where you stand politically, reading this timeline reveals how various Ukraine factions paid for official US imprimatur to shield themselves from other factions. Who is corrupt and who is clean depends on who is in power, but that can be trumped (pardon the phrase) by who has an American Roof: Well-connected US officials who vouch for you, call your enemies corrupt, and steer US favors and money as a system of rewards and punishment.
This is one more sad example of how well-connected private US citizens use their US government contacts to make money, peddling influence and opening doors to foreign actors to inveigle themselves into our government's official policy-making.
Please read the linked timeline and tell us what you think.
The Democratic Party is a joke. There is nothing here except abuse of power and incredibly obtuseness on ethics by Biden and the political activist claiming to be a whistleblower. Ethics statues are based upon the mere appearance of wrongdoing. Any claim by the so called whistleblower about Trump while ignoring the antics of Hunter Biden is a farce. He is in violation of the Hatch Act and should be terminated.
ReplyDeleteThese proceedings are more akin to a rigged Soviet proceedings with predetermined verdicts. None of this is as substantial as the Lois Lerner scandals. Its time for an investigation into the deep state. All the insiders who abused their positions need to be charged criminally. Will they do Gordon Liddys or dime Obama.
I agree with everything you've said, Beak, except for one item.
DeleteThe DemonRats are noJOKE. They are ANATHEMA pure and simple.
To express tolerance or even the slightest consideration for these rotten, stinking, hypocritical bastards, would be regarded as tantamount to TREASON and treated accordingly IF we had a legitimate government and a press corps who actually did its job instead of acting as an army of lickspittles slobbering all over themselves with eageress to do the bidding of treacherous globalists and demented poitical PERVERTS..
Indeed. The Obama administration broke the record for hard drives, blackberries and smart phones destroyed, smashed, misplaced and refused to be handed over.
DeleteThere are already in place federal laws designed to curtail foreign and domestic corruption. The problem is that these laws and proscriptions do not prevent corruption, they only punish it. Yet, before we can get to investigation and prosecution, there is another reality: selective prosecution. If you’re a Clinton, a Bush, an Obama, or a Biden (yes, the law applies to them as well), but from a practical standpoint, they are never investigated or prosecuted because they are (selectively) above the law. And this too, is corruption.
DeleteBiden’s video taped comment about how he withheld money from Ukraine until they fired a prosecutor, at a time when his son was receiving massive amounts of money while serving on the board of the corporation the prosecutor intended to investigate, could be used as evidence of his corruption. Will this ever happen? Um … no. Now let me say that Biden’s video-taped statement is one of two things: patently stupid, or amazingly arrogant. He knows he is above the law. He’s not losing any sleep at night about a grand jury indictment.
BTW, the Horowitz investigation is scheduled for release. My bet is that it will be a giant nothing-burger. It will be another example of selective prosecution. Some low-level staffer might get the shaft, but not the big wigs. Never going to happen in these United States.
Mustang,
DeleteFor the record, I don't believe VP Biden is corrupt, and I think his son just followed human nature and shamelessly cashed in on his father's status. Having said that, the whole thing warranted a thorough investigation.
I agree with you on the IG investigation, and also the criminal investigations by Huber. Bureaucracies do not attack themselves.
@ Silver
DeleteMy inclination is to agree with you, as I believe in a society that presumes innocence until there as a judgment of guilt. Where this falls away, however, is in the generally held belief that there exists in America today a double standard where certain people, through their wealth or position (or both), stand above the law. Even if this isn’t true, as in this case and in the long-term saga of Jeffry Epstein, the perception is as damaging as the reality because, when people no longer have confidence in the institution of American Justice, the republic begins to crumble. If there are credible reasons to investigate allegations, then they ought to be pursued with as much vigor as might be applied to a navy officer in procurement who is suspect of taking kickbacks.
Having said that, the whole thing warranted a thorough investigation.
DeleteI agree, although Bursima was under investigation before Hunter Biden arrived on the scene...there's no harm in rolling that aspect into the current effort.
And like I said, I don't think either Biden did anything wrong, but I agree with Mustang's comment. Our government needs to play these things straight up, be consistent and be transparent. Anything less erodes confidence in our institutions. I fear it may be too late anyway.
DeleteCampaign protestations to the contrary, our government.....under every Administration.....is the antithesis of consistent and transparent.
Delete+
DeleteIt is simply awe inspiring watching trumpers clearing the speck from another's eyes while ignoring the Trump log in their own.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a comment that is relevant to the post?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteC'mon Franco my friend, lighten up. Les is fun to have around, kinda like the incoherent stumbling drunkard dancing and singing by himself at the back of the saloon.
DeleteI also enjoy watching him stomp out in a tearful huff, swearing never to return...
Rational Nation USA November 17, 2019 at 3:46:00 PM EST
Sorry. Your con PC disingenuous BS no longer flies with me. I've observed enough. You convinced me avoiding folks with your proclivities is the proper.
... and then laughing when comes crouching back.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteFranco said...
DeleteDon't be so damned POLITE, Silver. Give that fudge-filled crass prole a good swift lick in the pecans, then STOMP him, when he's down.
Les responded...
Hey frankie ole skunk, grab your bud and come on over. I'm here. Ready for ya BOTH.
BTW, either of you even try to lick my pecans be prepared to lose your heads. [:>)>
Enough with the foul language and the keyboard tough guy baloney.
Could it possibly be mere coincidence that UKRAINE rhymes so perfectly with OUR PAIN?
ReplyDeleteAlso INANE.
DeleteI see John SOLMON all the time on the various FOX evening talk shows. He strikes me as sober, rational, honest, decent, hardworking and completely dependable when it comes to harvesting facts.
ReplyDeleteDoes he favor Presient Trump?
He HAS to because te FACTS support President Trump.
The fanciful putrid assertions, deliberate distortions, and hate-based fabrications with which We the People are SHOWERED and FLOODED 'round the clock by DemonRat operatives and their henchmen and handmaidens in the ENEMEDIA, The POISON IVY LEAGUE, and OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGES is nothing but the rankest BILGE and an affront to Human Dignity and Decency, itself.
Whether you knw it or not, if you are no fousqaure FOR President TRUMP, you are effective working against the best intrerests of our blessed NATION.
"Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice."
Moderation in war is imbecility."
John S_O_L_O_M_O_N. Sorry!
DeletePS: Don't bother to read Wikiipedia's article on the most excellent John Solomon. They do give the basic facts about his career, but the whole thing is heavily laced and embroidered with their blatant ANTI-CONSERVATIVE bias.
What's missing is the fact that Obama looked into Hunter Binden's involvement.
ReplyDeleteDebunking 4 Viral Rumors About the Bidens and Ukraine:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/business/media/fact-check-biden-ukraine-burisma-china-hunter.html
Please stop trying to interest us in out-and out agenda-driven BULLSCHIFF!
DeleteThe New York Times in essence IS –– and lways has been –– a dirty COMMUNIST Rag –– nothing but a disseminator of Leftist Propaganda –– masqueradfig as a legitimate source of "News."
I'm sure SilverFiddle and his pal "CI" will be glad to entertain your garbage with an earnest attempt to give it the "Fair" and "Objective" consideration THEY want to believe is its due, but you'll never get that from ME.
I'm a hyper-partisan Pro-Trump, Pro-AMERICA bigot and PROUD of it. And I don'give a RAT'S RUMP what anyone thinks of me.
With LOTS of experience behind me as I approach eighty years of age, I don't have TIME to bother trying to be "diplomatic" with idiotic fencesitters whose Bland Sweet Reasonable Approach serves only to aid and abet America's sworn enemies.
Ah! The Obama Admin investigated itself. That clears that up!
DeleteObama administration knew Hunter Biden was shady, witness admits
State Department official raised concerns about Hunter Biden
Funny how the timeline stops in May 2019. Nothing about Trump's bribe, Giuliani's involvement or the fact that Nunes 9who is on the investigation committee0 is up to his neck in this treachery himself.
DeleteBiden did noting illegal. Trump sold us out for political gain. Putin is smiling for his puppet.
Goose,
DeleteSo your only quibble with the timeline is where it stops. Fair enough.
I’m not sure how Trump “sold us out.” Can you give an example?
DeleteI'm sure SilverFiddle and his pal "CI" will be glad to entertain your garbage....
DeleteYep, it appears that we will, because echo chambers are the playground of simple, mindless sheep, who only love the stale braying of their own perceived self importance.
Hey Goose, hang in there. Soon you'll be on the receiving end of the cons vicious character attacks. Which BTW serves to PROVE you're on the right course.
ReplyDeleteVicious character attacks???
DeleteCould you please provide an example where that happened to you here?
Thanks
You'll have to research the archives and YOUR memory Silver. I'm not in the habit of aiding the guilty. Particularly when ignoring the log is their practice.
DeleteSo, you made a foolish comment you cannot back up with facts. Again. Thanks for confirming.
DeleteQuite the opposite actually. But certainly feed your denials whenever and however you like. I know the truth. AMD THAT is ALL that is important. Carry on.
DeleteWhen you make allegations of "vicious character attacks," be prepared to back them up.
DeleteDon't you ever get tired of wiping egg off your lying face?
Do you?
DeleteBecause the truth, not being your stock in trade, is foreign to you.
Can you provide some examples of where I have lied?
DeleteThe American people have a very long history of greed and corruption. It’s not an American thing as much as it is part of human nature. It was this very thing that set into motion the stock market crash of 1929 and global depression, and this in turn led to the rise of European fascists and the horror of a second world war. Have we learned anything at all from past history? No, because rather than analyzing past events and using them to make course corrections to personal and national behavior or policy, we forge ahead with our only priority being the present and what may be gained “now”; to hell with its future implications. In my view, revelations about Biden corruption is only the tip of the iceberg. How many years now have the Clinton’s gotten away with their corruption, or the Bush’s theirs, and the massive corruption of the post-Obama presidency?
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing fictional about Solomon’s time line. If anything at all, it tells us that no one in our past has taken President Washington’s advice to heart: beware of foreign entanglements. What he said would happen, has. What I find amazing is that rather than supporting the notion that it is time to “drain the swamp,” those on the left instead circle their wagons around people who really ought to be held to account. They are the “enablers” of a kind of behavior that is destroying (or, rather, adding to the ruination of) the American Republic. They do this, not out of patriotism, but for partisan loyalty. As a nation, we will reap that which we sow; no more, no less. I agree with Ducky’s common refrain: we are indeed a sorry people.
Mustang,
DeleteThank you, my friend, for that excellent comment!
++
DeletePartisan sparring is fun, but I would like to know what people here think about the larger issue I raised concerning international influence peddling, private American citizens profiting overseas from their US government connections, and foreign governments burrowing their way into our foreign policy decisions loops?
ReplyDeleteThis is a bi-partisan cancer.
The key to influence peddling is the tremendous amount of money the US government hands out as “foreign aid” and “security assistance.” It fuels massive corruption within the countries that receives it, and it causes multi-national corporations and their PACs to implement policies and programs that will allow them an opportunity to receive a piece of the pie. Most people are unaware of the fact that loans are usually embedded within aid packages, and this does little more than to increase the debt of the country we say we’re trying to help. See also, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Perkins. Foreign aid and security assistance promotes the interests of a coalition of government bureaucracies, banks, and corporations who can increase their bottom line courtesy of the US taxpayer. My conclusion is that foreign aid serves the interests of corporate giants. Even worse than this, it effectively disenfranchises the democracies we claim to care about; why should Ukraine’s government care about their citizens’ opinions when it doesn’t rely on them to retain their power? Foreign aid reinforces social inequities, cycles of political abuse and corruption, and blocks incentives among the people to achieve and maintain representative government. We would do our foreign “friends” a favor by cancelling all foreign aid —massive amounts of money that would be better spent here at home.
DeleteThis bi-partisan cancer as it were has been around since trade and economic systems have existed. IE, since recorded time.
DeleteThe Silk Roads, A new History of the World, by Prter Frankopan is a fabulous book that fills in the absolute dearth in world history presented by western centric historians. Frankopan is a professor at Oxford BTW.
Anyway, if anyone is interested in a more complete and thorough understanding of world history it is an excellent source.
In addition to offering an amazing look at history you were likely never taught it reinforces the truth that the more things change the more they stay the same.
Humans are, indeed creatures of habit. Throughout the millennium.
@ RN
DeleteI think Frankopan did a credible job on the Crusades, but his Silk Road effort has been justifiably criticized for containing numerous errors of fact and the insertion of his own view of politics. He may have rushed it to press and there is always room for updated editions later on. I hold the view that history is never finally written because with time, there are revelations of fact that change our perceptions of past events. There is no “new” history, only new ways of looking at it (enter our own political biases) … but history must involve verifiable facts and lead the researcher (and reader) to logical conclusions. I haven’t read his newest book, though.
Thanks for contributing.
Are they "BIASES," Mustang, or might theyy better be described as "INSIGHTS" gained from observation and personal experience.
DeleteAfter all, I think it fair to say that virtually everything produced by human beings began as a flash of insight in someone's fertile imagination that came to fruition via the determined exercise of human willpower.
FYI: From WIKIPEDIA [It's always a good idea to include biographial material when referencing any figure largely unknown to the general public]
DeletePeter Frankopan (born 22 March 1971) is a British historian, writer and hotelier.
Frankopan is the second of five children born to Yugoslavia-born Croatian aristocrat Louis Nicholas Anthony Doimi Frankopan (1939–2018), who emigrated to the United Kingdom after his family's land and fortunes were seized by the Yugoslav communist government in 1951, and Swedish-born barrister and professor of international law Ingrid Detter de Frankopan. His elder sister is Lady Nicholas Windsor.
He attended Eton College and then received a degree in Byzantine history from Jesus College, Cambridge before getting his D.Phil at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is a senior research fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, and director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research.
His areas of focus are the history of the Byzantine Empire, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Russia, as well as the interdependence of Islam and Christianity. He has also studied Greek literature of the Middle Ages]
Frankopan's first book of history, The First Crusade: The Call from the East, was published in 2012. The book received a rare five-star review from Nicholas Shakespeare in the Telegraph. He called it a "persuasive and bracing work" and said "Peter Frankopan is not yet well known, but he deserves to be."
In 2015, his book The Silk Roads: A New History of the World was published. Writing in the Telegraph, Bettany Hughes praised it as a "charismatic and essential book",[10] while Anthony Sattin, writing in the Guardian, called it "ambitious" and "full of insight but let down by factual errors". His follow-up book,The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World (Bloomsbury Publishing), was published in 2018.
@ Franco
DeleteInsight gained by experience is bias. That’s not a dirty word or an undue criticism. We are all unique in the way we process information. Good history is objective, but there may be no such thing as total objectivity. In responding to the question, “Was Napoleon a good leader,” it is possible to construct an articulate response supporting both sides of the question, and do so with unimpeachable facts. The sophistication of any analysis (understanding) of the response will depend on the respondent’s familiarity with generally accepted leadership traits in the 18th-19th centuries. In any case, it is the duty of the writer/historian to present facts and if he intends to communicate his or her conclusions, exercise care in making those opinions as unbiased as possible. We do no justice to history by revising it to fit a modern narrative. This was Zinn’s mistake and completely motivated by his contempt for the American experience.
Multiple upvotes for Mustang
DeleteThe key question as it regard US policy....is how sincere and committed are we to protecting a sovereign Ukraine? As with every military [mis] adventure, the corrupt and the powerful [quite often the same entity] will line their pockets either directly, or through political clout/donations/favors.
ReplyDeleteI echo an above comment, it would be instructive to see the timeline brought forward to the present day. Without that, we're only seeing part of the puzzle.
I have never understood why the foreign policy "experts" pushed us cozying up with Ukraine and Georgia. Nothing against the good people there, but I think your comment last week succinctly summed up their historical and geographical importance to Russia.
DeleteGlobalization certainly makes for a fertile environment for the proliferation of influence peddling, profiteering, and corruption. No question about it. I imagine globalization in antiquity and following the Dark Ages experienced similar behavoirs.
ReplyDeleteThe more things change the more they stay the same.
&There is nothing new under the sun.
Given the truth in those quotes it's more likely than not that this will remain an open issue unresolved for the millenniums.
To all my friends (especially FT who has wished me dead) I have survived five way bypass surgery.
ReplyDeleteDuck,
DeleteRecently?
I went into rehab today/
DeleteJust today? A very recent surgery then.
DeleteAll the best for your recovery, Duck. Cardiac rehab can be challenging -- to say the least.
Damn...hope you have a speedy recovery.
DeleteI have missed your acidic quacking, I am glad they found the blockages before they killed you, and I wish you a full and speedy recovery.
DeleteHey Ducky! Take care of yourself!
DeleteGet well soon, you crusty old commie!
DeleteAll the best, Ducky!
DeleteDucky, everyone I know who's had anything like this has done so well. I wish the same for you. All the best.
DeleteBest wishes for a speedy recovery, Ducky.
ReplyDeleteDucky... I was wondering where you were. Here's hopes for a speedy recovery.
ReplyDeleteHey Ducky!!! All best wishes to my favorite adversary. Hang in there bro, there's hope for you yet. >;-)
DeleteBest wishes for a speedy recovery Ducky!
ReplyDeleteDucky,
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry you’ve had to go through this ordeal. I’ve had several close friends who had the same or a similar experience. Recovery is more challenging than the surgery, itself, but it’s been remarkably successful in all the cases I’ve known, except one.
Like most leftists –– and far too any others in our lsrgely misinformed, miseducated, malconditioned populace –– you’ve made the great mistake of taking what I’ve said LITERALLY.
As irksome and irritating as you pride yourself on being it’s not YOU I wish were dead; it’s your miserable, hideously destructive Marxian IDEOLOGY I would cheerfully stamp out, incinerate, plverize, and scatter over the middle of the Pacific Ocean from an aeroplane had I the power to do so.
But you have nothing to worry about, Ducky. I’m sure you will live and continue to bedevil the bogosphere and Americn society in general for a very long time, because –– in cse you’ve never heard –– "Only the GOOD die young.”
Seriously, GET WELL SOON, and have a good THANKSGIVING. Being alive, even in a benighted world such as this, is still something for which all survivors should be thankful.
Good article from one of the left's favorite hate totem, Sharyl Attkisson:
ReplyDeleteImpeachment inquiry: It's a question of who should run the show
To me, each of the Democrats’ witnesses of the past two weeks appeared to be well-intentioned and hard-working, and seemed genuinely to believe they know what’s best.
But a picture also emerged of U.S. diplomats who appear to believe they, rather than the U.S. president, have the ultimate authority to determine our foreign policy. And if the president doesn’t go along? He clearly must be wrong — in their view. Or, even worse, he’s a traitor. He’s to be obstructed. Taken down.
In an odd turnabout, they actually make the case for President Trump’s mantra that we need to “drain the swamp.”
One can first look at the language witnesses used as they vented about Trump’s tutelage in ways that veered far from relevance to the impeachment allegations. They conveyed hurt feelings, bruised egos and strong differences of opinion. At times, the testimony sounded a bit like a human resources conference or psychotherapy session.
DeleteThe flip side of that is that unlike believing that they can determine foreign policy, if they see (or are being made a party to) a POTUS using a foreign entity for domestic and partisan political chicanery, they would surely have the duty to expose such, no?
DeleteI do not think government employees have a “duty to expose” government actions or policies they disagree with. They do have a duty to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, a duty to obey federal laws and statutes, a duty to act in good faith. If someone employed by the federal government believes that laws were broken, and if there is a basis for believing this beyond one’s political preferences, by which I mean factual evidence of wrongdoing, then they have a duty to report these suspected violations through the chain of command. Having done that, an employee did his/her duty. Now, if it happens that they do not agree with the result of their complaint, which is to say that they do not agree that their supervisor adequately responded to their concerns, then they can take the matter higher up the chain of command, including the OIG. After all these steps, persons who are still not happy with the results of their complaint, they have one remaining option: resign. After that, of course, beyond illegally revealing classified information, there is no bar to what they can say, or who they can say it to.
DeleteYou’re correct if you limit it to actions they “disagree with”. Actions that are unethical or even potentially illegal, is a different matter.
DeleteSilverfiddle, that was the impression I got while I watched much of the hearings....I kept thinking "But that's not yours to decide... and anybody who doesn't agree with you isn't necessarily wrong." Thanks for this, SF, because while watching I have also realized Trump is not 100% clear of any unethical wrongdoing. Attkisson is one of the only journalists I respect anymore. I wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving.
DeleteCI,
ReplyDeleteQuid pro quo's happen all the time. Biden's video was one example, and it is within the purview of the executive.
The facts laid out by the hearings did not prove motive, and that is what you need to do if you tack on to the end of the president's actions that he "did it for 2020 election purposes, inviting in foreign influence in our election."
If there is a clear instance of law-breaking, you gotta report it. This was a klatch of snotty know-it-all "experts" pissed at President Trump for not doing what they told him. Also, to be charitable, this group of diplomats had obviously become emotionally-invested in their Ukraine project.
It is also notable that this is the first time the bureaucracy has blown a whistle on subjective presidential action, and congress and the media got behind them. This is setting a very bad precedent, which is what Democrats seem to excel at.
What mitigates in President Trump's favor is that corruption and investigations of it (or non-investigation) have been on-going topics between our government and theirs. Also, Burisma was under investigation (and is again) and Burisma obviously hired Hunter Biden as a "roof." Burisma is a legitimate target of interest for the US government to pressure Ukraine on. This wasn't some bolt out of the blue. Also, according to all testimony so far, the President did not ask for dirt. He asked them to "look into it."
DeleteRight now, this looks like one more premeditated hysteria planned and executed by partisan political operators.
Quid pro quo’s do happen all of the time, and their often quite acceptable.....when they advance or protect national security or national policy. If they only seek to advance a domestic campaign, it’s out of bounds.
DeleteI appreciate your rational take on the issue, and I haven’t pronounced Trump guilty, certainly not of an impeachable offense (as I would define it, as the parameters are vague).......but I’m also not convinced of his innocence.
What foreign aid package isn't predicated on a quid pro quo of some sort or another? If we're giving money away for nothing, why? Who is more at fault here? The guy who wants corruption investigated? Or the one who wants that investigation blocked?
ReplyDelete